Gov. Huckabee against "Shiite Republicans"

New article showing Huckabee's attacks against Republicans.

In 2000, Huckabee insisted on controlling the state party’s separate Victory Committee, but the committee’s finances were so poorly handled that a Federal Election Commission investigation resulted in the largest fine ever handed down by the FEC to a state party. That same year Republican Rep. Jay Dickey lost the 4th District seat he’d held for eight years.

In 2001, when conservative Republican lawmakers opposed a higher sales taxes and fees the governor supported, he began calling them “Shiites.” Huckabee’s positions on fiscal policy became indistinguishable from Democrats’ positions. A year later, he openly campaigned against a ballot initiative to remove the sales tax on food and medicine. While he and Rockefeller won re-election in 2002, Sen. Tim Hutchinson didn’t. In 2003, Huckabee not only begged lawmakers for new taxes to make up a budget shortfall, but he rebuffed conservatives’ (Republicans and a couple of Democrats) plan to cover the shortfall by tapping one-time money and cutting pork. In 2004, President Bush won re-election, but Huckabee campaigned for some Democrats - even some who had Republican opponents - and Republicans lost state legislative seats for the first time since 1990. In 2005, a term-limited Huckabee frustrated conservatives when he pushed a bill to give in-state college tuition and scholarships to the children of illegal immigrants. The next year, Democrats swept Republicans in every race for statewide constitutional office and Republicans lost legislative seats for the second consecutive election cycle.